ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



9? 



vidually or through the association, and 

 then we ■will take care of the details 

 afterwards, but we want to deal only 

 with the producer and we want thenn 

 to know we are dealing- directly with 

 the consumer. 



Mr. Dadant — If Mr. Bull will pardon 

 me. I noticed. When the gentleman 

 (Mr. Ourtis) passed Mr. Bull, Mr. Bull 

 handed him a card. Mr. Bull did not 

 let an oportunity pass by to sell some 

 honey; he is in on the ground floor 

 with that man. That is what more of 

 us need to do; get on the ground floor 

 with every man you run up against 

 whom you have the least suspicion of 

 wanting to buy siome honey. 



Pres. Huffman — That is a thought 

 well taken; we don't get it before the 

 people enough to let theni know we 

 have honey for sale. 



Mr. Pyles — I do not believe that what 

 we call the wholesale man had a very 

 big profit on the honey question. The 

 j-etailer is the man who is making a 

 big profit. Honey ■ sells in Peoria, 

 wholesale, they pay me $3.00 and pay 

 freight and they sell it to the retailer 

 at three dollars and sixty cents, for 

 twenty-four sections; the retailer sell- 

 ing it at twenty and twenty-five cents 

 a section in the city of Peoria, accord- 

 ing to whether it is fancy or No. 1; 

 the price is doubled from the time it 

 leaves my hands. I believe this is a 

 condition that exists largely through 

 the country, where you deal through the 

 grocers. There was a time when we 

 had three grocery stores and three men 

 doing the work; now they have six men 

 selling no more — but the profit has 

 doubled; six families making a living 

 on what three did before; no more 

 goods handled, but the profit is greater. 



Pres. Huffman — That is the condi- 

 tion I believe you will find, generally; 

 as the gentleman has said in regard to 

 shipping to the commission man; he 

 does not charge so much but the man 

 that buys from the commission man 

 makes the profit. 



A Member — The grocer man pays 

 eighteen and one-half cents and makes 

 about three cents. 



Mr. Steubing— I sell comb honey for 

 twenty cents a pound; in a big store 

 here you 'have .got to pay twenty-five 

 cents for seme honey. The grocer don't 

 make very much. 



Mr. Dadant — There is no doubt that 

 the retail grocer does not make very 



much; but somewhere between the pro- 

 ducer and the consumer it doubles in 

 price; the great trouble is, in my opin- 

 ion, that we have too many handling 

 the same thing; -where five people are 

 handling the same stuff, let one or two 

 do the work, and the other three go into 

 something else; may be they could go 

 into the honey producing business, or 

 into some other product and make it 

 better in this way for the consumer. 



Mr. Kannenberg — If the grocer even 

 sells the honey for twenty cents a sec- 

 tion, he makes more of a profit than 

 three or four cents; he buys it by the 

 pound and sells it by the cake, and 

 there is at least two cakes over in a 

 case, and he gets those two cakes and 

 in this way makes a greater profit than 

 were he to sell it by the po und. _ ^_^^ 



Mr. Cavanagh — I would like to ask 

 whether we are talking about gross or 

 net profit? Do you know what the 

 overhead expenses are? What the net 

 profit is to this grocer after he pays 

 five or ten thousand dollars for rent in 

 the high rent district? I wonder if we 

 are considering the fact of the over- 

 head expense. Very few of them make 

 a net profit of ten per cent. 



Mr. Kannenberg — They figure twenty- 

 five or thirty-three per cent. 



Mr. Cavaragh — I pity them if they 

 sell everything the way they do honey; 

 if they figure on that small margin on 

 everything else they sell there would 

 not be verj- much of a profit in their 

 business. 



A Member — I had a grocer tell me. 

 that almost always he has one broken 

 section in a case, and he told me if he 

 had to sell everything with the same 

 profit there is to him in selling honey, 

 he would starve to death. 



Mr. Pyles — Honey has doubled in 

 price : it used to be twelve and a half 

 cents: there is at least one-fourth of 

 that in freight between me and the 

 commission man: perhaps some cartage 

 in the delivery in Peoria from the com- 

 mission man to the grocer, but that 

 does not amount to more than one cent; 

 now we have thirteen and a fourth 

 cents for it; the retailers "get twenty; 

 there is six and a fourth cents; and 

 take one section broken, we have only 

 thirteen and a quarter — the rest of that 

 profit. Now there is a good stiff profit 

 in that; if this man has to pay five or 

 ten thousand dollars for the rent of the 

 building, he must add it to the price 



